PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Naguib Mahfouz was born in Cairo in 1911 and began writing when he was seventeen. A student of philosophy and an avid reader, his works range from reimaginings of ancient myths to subtle commentaries on contemporary Egyptian politics and culture. Over a career that lasted more than five decades, he wrote 33 novels, 13 short story anthologies, numerous plays, and 30 screenplays. Of his many works, most famous is The Cairo Trilogy, consisting of Palace Walk (1956), Palace of Desire (1957), and Sugar Street (1957), which focuses on a Cairo family through three generations, from 1917 until 1952. In 1988, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first writer in Arabic to do so. He died in August 2006.
"Praise for Naguib Mahfouz: ""The greatest writer in one of the most widely understood languages in the world, a storyteller of the first order in any idiom."" —Vanity Fair ""A Dickens of the Cairo cafes."" —Newsweek ""The incredible variety of Naguib Mahfouz's writings continue to dazzle our eyes."" —The Washington Post ""Naguib Mahfouz virtually invented the novel as an Arab form. He excels at fusing deep emotion and soap opera."" —The New York Times Book Review ""Mahfouz's work is freshly nuanced and hauntingly lyrical. The Nobel Prize acknowledges the universal significance of his fiction."" —Los Angeles Times Book Review"
